


You Knew the Job Was Dangerous When You Took it, Fred

by Dillian



Series: We Have Sown the Wind, and We Reap the Whirlwind [3]
Category: Fantastic Four, The Avengers (2012), Thor (Movies)
Genre: And Then There Were None, Implied or Off-stage Rape/Non-con, M/M, Medical Trauma, Psychological Trauma, Rape Aftermath, anal rape
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-07-01
Updated: 2013-07-10
Packaged: 2017-12-16 19:39:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/865831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dillian/pseuds/Dillian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Looking back, it should have been obvious that The Avengers were sitting ducks.  They knew Loki was after them, they knew he'd already gotten Tony.  Why in the name of God, why did they all just go about their normal business and let them get Bruce as well?</p>
<p>Told from Steve Rogers' point of view, this is the story of why Bruce Banner would let his guard down  enough to go to Dr. Doom's mountain stronghold in Latveria, even knowing Loki was there, and had reason to want revenge.  It is the story of that revenge, and of what it did to The Avengers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. We've Got Banner

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They should have known what to expect. Instead, the incident with Bruce takes them as much by surprise as the one with Tony did.

“When you find yourself in danger,   
When you're threatened by a stranger,   
When it looks like you will take a lickin', (puk, puk, puk)   
There is someone waiting,   
Who will hurry up and rescue you,   
Just Call for Super Chicken! (puk, ack!) 

Fred, if you're afraid you'll have to overlook it,   
Besides you knew the job was dangerous when you took it (puk, ack!) 

He will drink his super sauce   
And throw the bad guys for a loss   
And he will bring them in alive and kickin' (puk, puk, puk)   
There is one thing you should learn   
When there is no one else to turn to   
Call for Super Chicken! (puk, puk, puk)   
Call for Super Chicken! (puk, ack!)“  
– Jay Ward and Bill Scott

 

**_The Avengers_ , and _Thor_ , and all situations and characters thereof, belong strictly and solely to Marvel Incorporated. This is a fan-work, meant for enjoyment only, and not for any material profit.**

 

It wasn't until afterward that we started being really careful. In retrospect, that's unforgivable, but you have to look at it from where we were coming from: What did we know then? We knew that Loki was working with Dr. Doom. Director Fury covered that, or he tried to. He put out a general warning, telling everyone SHIELD, or SHIELD-related, to keep away from Latveria. Then he went to the Justice Department again, asked them to revoke the guy's diplomatic clearance, and close down that damn Embassy of his. They didn't go for it though. Said Doom was more dangerous if they _didn't_ know what he was up to and you know, I can't say I really blame them. We're supposed to be super-heroes. Putting ourselves in harm's way is part of the job-description for us, you might say. Besides, with his powers gone, Loki must have seemed sort of neutralized. – I mean, we told them what he did to Tony, but technically speaking, that didn't break any laws. Let's face it, if you're going to throw everyone in jail who's done something weird in the bedroom, you're going to have half the city of New York in there.

Looking back though, we were kind of sitting ducks. The only question was which of us was Loki going to go for next. You know those Westerns, where the scouts are way out in Indian Territory, and they get picked off slowly, one by one? That was us, we just hadn't figured it out yet. 

We were in between Avengers jobs. Clint and Natasha had their regular SHIELD duties, but with me and Bruce on an on-call basis, we were both off doing our own things. And Tony was... Well you know where Tony was.

It was about six months, maybe seven months since they'd finally released Tony from the hospital. He was at home. ...At what he has left in the way of a home. He wasn't with Pepper. She'd probably have taken him back, she felt so sorry after what had happened to him, but he couldn't stand the sight of her any more. Still can't. He wasn't at the Tower either. He says that's got too many bad memories. He's got a vacation place, it used to belong to his father I think, in the Virgin Islands. He was there. – He's still there, for that matter. Sometimes I'll visit him, and I think some of the other Avengers do too. – 

Fury was back at his regular duties. I was doing my usual off-duty stuff, speaking at schools, meeting with civic groups, that kind of thing. We didn't ask too many questions about where Bruce was. – Looking back, we didn't ask enough questions. If we hadn't all just assumed he was volunteering in some clinic somewhere, like he likes to do, none of this would have happened. But we haven't been so close, since what happened with Loki. I mean, we're still a team and all, but for a while right at the beginning, it looked like we might be friends... That didn't pan out. We're just co-workers, and co-workers don't ask questions.

So how it happened, was I was visiting a school in Newark, right at the end of the school year. I think it was the last school I had scheduled for that year. They were giving a citizenship assembly. – They've got these tests kids have to take every year any more. Really intense tests, from what I've heard, way worse than the final exams you used to take every June, back when I was in school. Nowadays a lot of stuff gets scheduled for the very end of the year, after the tests are over. The fun stuff, like assembles and so on... Funny, you wouldn't think watching me talk about staying in school and not taking drugs, would be that much fun.

The assembly hadn't started yet, so when my cell phone rang, I picked up right away. Fury was on the other end: “We've got Banner,” he said. “Where can I send the helicarrier to get you?”

“We've _got_ Banner” can mean a lot of things. When Fury said it, my first thought was about Bruce's Other Side, you know, about the Hulk. Something happened, I thought. Bruce got mad. Everyone knows what happens to him when he gets mad. The question was going to be, where they had him. Was he on the helicarrier, or in prison somewhere? I hoped he wasn't in a standoff somewhere, where it would take the rest of us to bring him down.

Turned out though, it was Bruce they had though, not the Hulk. He was in SHIELD Hospital, up in the Maximum Security ward, where they put me right after I came out of the ice, that you had to have top security clearance just to visit. Fury explained about it after the helicarrier picked me up outside the school. “It's just as well we don't have Stark any more,” he said. “He lost his clearance after the brass found out he let Colonel Rhodes take one of his suits away from him.”

It was about 10:00 when the helicarrier picked me up. Clint and Natasha were already on board, and Agent Hill was manning the controls.

“Jim Howlett found him,” Fury said. “He was in Latveria on business.”

“Howlett was?” Natasha asked. Howlett's semi-connected with Professor Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, but he's got a reputation for being a loner, and it's hard to tell what he might do.

“Banner,” Fury told her. “I don't know why Howlett was there.”

“Why would Bruce be there?” Clint said. “Was he volunteering? One of those clinic-things he does? I always got the impression the medical care was the only good thing about living in Latveria.”

“I have no idea why he was there,” Fury said. “Howlett took him to SHIELD Hospital last night, soon as he arrived in New York. I haven't seen him yet, haven't talked to him. He's been asleep, apparently the flight back took a lot out of him. Howlett said he talked to him, though. He said Banner was there to meet Dr. Doom. Something to do with the Hulk. Loki was there...” Fury swallowed. “You can use your imagination about what he did to him.”

He didn't have to draw us any pictures. We all knew what we'd done to Thor's brother two years ago. Thor's the one who told us to do it, it was some kind of punishment Odin had ordered, apparently. But you don't forgive the people that do those kinds of things to you. – Nobody could forgive it, nobody but a real saint. And Loki's not a saint. He'd said he wanted revenge. And we already had what happened to Tony as proof that he was getting his revenge.

“Just out of curiosity,” Clint said. “What kind of treatment is Dr. Banner getting?”

“You mean is it psychiatric like Tony?” Fury shook his head. “Torn tissue, anal trauma and infection, consistent with forcible penetration.” His face looked kind of green. “Forcible penetration by a _large_ object. Howlett said Banner said something about Frost Giants, but that doesn't make any sense.”

It did though, I thought, because of what Thor told us about Loki's being adopted. “Isn't he,” I started.

Fury interrupted right away: “I know he's a Frost Giant,” he said. “I was there too, when Thor told us. He can't change forms back and forth though, not with his powers still locked by Odin. He was in human-form the last time we saw him, he's got to be in human-form now too.”

“A dildo?” Natasha said it as cool as you might say, “how's the weather,” or “nice day,” or something like that.”

Fury was just as cool in response. “That's why I want us to watch this, before we see him.” He held up a white envelope with a compact disc in it.


	2. More Than Any of Us Wanted to See

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Director Fury wants them to watch it carefully, -- There are some details he thinks might be important. -- but The Avengers can't seem to get past the reality of what they're seeing.

We were in the big conference room on the helicarrier. – You know in the 40's, we never could have imagined an airplane that size. It was the power to get one off the ground, we didn't have that. I've heard how first you had jet power, then rockets... If I understand it correctly, the helicarrier uses a combination of rocket and rotor-power, but I'm no engineer. I could be wrong. It's _big_ anyway, is what I'm saying, big enough that besides everything else, you've got this big conference room, like you might find in the main office of a major corporation. We were in there. Fury had a box of donuts and a big pot of coffee on the back table. I don't know why. He must have known, what he was going to show us would be enough to kill all our appetites.

He had a computer in there, one of the ultra-modern, Stark Enterprises kind with a holographic screen. And he opened the drawer where the CD goes, and slipped it in there. After a minute or two, the action started. – It wasn't like one of those commercial DVDs you get at the video store, the ones with the Start Menu, and you choose what scene you want to watch, or if you want to see the whole movie. This one just opened up and the action was already happening. ...Or no action, rather. What we saw, was an empty laboratory.

“Doom's lab,” Fury said. 

“Has to be,” came Natasha's voice. Then they both shut up real quick, as the voices started, offscreen.

“Prisoner in here.” There was a faint, very tiny whirring sound, then a slam. You couldn't see the door, but that must have been it opening. Then the voices got louder. “Doom's word is law.” More whirring, and in came a couple of robots. They were dragging a man. We all knew it had to be Bruce, but his head was down, all you could actually see was his tumbled brown hair, and his naked body, with a few bruises visible.

Then Loki's voice came from just offscreen: “Introduce yourself, Dr. Banner.” One of his skinny, white hands came into the camera shot. He yanked Bruce's head back by the hair, then you saw his other hand, as he pulled a wad of some kind of cloth out of his mouth.

“I...” Bruce's eyes were really wide, really dilated-looking. “Loki, let me go! Please!”

In came that white hand again, and gave him a sharp slap. This time you could see Loki's whole shoulder. “I said, _introduce yourself._ ”

“Unnecessary, surely?” came a snooty voice from off-camera. “They will know who he is.”

“ _Not_ unnecessary. He made me obey. – They all made me obey.” Loki grabbed Bruce around the throat. From the angle of the camera, all we could see was his back. His hair was back to being smooth and perfect again, the way he wore it during the invasion, but his clothes were loose and casual-looking. It wasn't until later on, that we found out why. He grabbed Bruce, and he shook him. You couldn't see much of Bruce, just his hair bobbed into the screenshot a couple of times. “You will introduce yourself,” Loki gritted. “We will not continue until you do.”

“Will you be so good please, Dr. Banner? I'm afraid my associate is _rather volatile_.” The snooty, off-camera voice belonged to Dr. Doom. We all figured that out way before we saw him.

“Bastard,” Natasha muttered. “He doesn't care what happens to Bruce.”

“He doesn't care about much,” Fury said. “Just getting power for himself.”

Onscreen, Loki was still shaking Bruce. I had to remind myself that he was safe in the SHIELD Hospital, because from the looks of it, Loki was just a few seconds away from killing him. Finally, the shaking stopped.

“Your introduction, Dr. Banner?” Just for a moment you could see a big armored hand come into the shot and touch Loki's shoulder. “Give the man some air, Loki.”

Then they both stepped away. Bruce stumbled, like he was about to fall. Then the robots, who were still there right behind him, grabbed his arms again.

Bruce looked terrible. He had big, dark circles under his eyes, and there was dried blood all around his nose and mouth. He had kind of a haunted look on his face. There was fear in it, but there was something else too, like he was thinking about a problem too big to let alone. We found out what that was later on when we talked to him, too.

“I...” Just the tip of his tongue came out to lick his lips. “M-my name is Bruce B-Banner.”

Dr. Doom's voice again: “Was that so hard?” Then, right afterward, “How do you want him, Loki?”

“The counter.” Onscreen, the movement got confusing. We saw Loki's shoulder, his back... We got one good look of the back of a robot, and its tank-style tractor feet. “Bend him over,” Loki said. “The robots can hold him.” Then we got a good look at Bruce, bent facedown over the counter across from the camera. You saw his shoulders – They had bruises on them too. – a little bit of his hair... What you mostly saw, was his buttocks. Or maybe that's just what we noticed the most, since we all knew what was coming.

Dr. Doom came onscreen again, his arm, his shoulder, and half of his back, dressed in some kind of loose-fitting green cape-thing. I knew he wore armor all the time, because Fury had done whole briefing right after we found out he was working with Loki, but it was still disorienting seeing him. He didn't look human, more like one of his robots. What was a hell of a lot more disorienting though, was what was in his hand:

It was big, long too... See-through green plastic. At one end was a knob. I couldn't see the other end. “What is that?” I asked. 

“A dildo,” Clint said really quick. “Shhh...”

“Shall I _prepare_ him,” Dr. Doom asked onscreen.

“Why?” A kind of a _hoarse_ tone had come into Loki's voice. “None of them prepared me.”

Dr. Doom stepped back, and then...

Let me see if I can explain what came onscreen then: We'd all seen the Hulk transform a few times by then. You know how big he gets, big enough that all his clothes rip and shred. I remember one time Tony talked about developing a special _stretch_ -fiber, especially so Bruce's clothes would stay on... – But I don't want to talk about Tony. -- ...Anyway, that's not the point. The point is, that what came onscreen wearing Loki's clothes was bigger than Loki, but not so big that the clothes didn't fit. It was big, and bald, and blue. There were these horn-things sprouting out of the forehead, and sort of seams, or pitted lines, all along the skull, that went down the neck, and disappeared inside Loki's loose – Not so loose any more. – white shirt. 

The thing came onscreen facing us. Its eyes were red, and there was a horrible smile on its face. It had a shirt on, but nothing below the waist, nothing except... ...Well, there was something, of course. Something big and hard. Something erect. It didn't look like a penis, but that had to be what it was. 

Fury paused the video. “Notice,” he said. “You never see Loki turn into that thing..”

That wasn't what any of us were noticing. “Thing's the size of my arm,” I heard Clint mutter. That was my first thought too.

“It's wearing Loki's clothes.” – I wished Fury hadn't paused where he did. I knew he was trying to take the “big-picture” approach to what we were watching, – You know, gathering all the information we could, so we wouldn't have to ask Bruce a lot of questions later on. – but it was hard to think about anything but that huge, hard thing we were looking at, especially knowing where it was going to go in a minute. – “It moves really naturally. – We all know what Doom can do with robots, though.”

“You're saying Bruce is about to get fucked by a robot?” Clint sounded sick.

Fury sounded perfectly normal though. I don't know how he managed it, maybe because he'd watched the whole thing before. “I think it's a possibility. – I'm going to run the rest of this now. Pay attention to Loki. I want your opinions.”

He pressed the remote, and the action started again. That big blue thing onscreen turned away. It was kind of a relief, not to see its penis any more. It moved in close to Bruce, grabbed his hips with its huge, seamed hands...

“Didn't Thor say something about a Frost Giant's touch freezing things?” Natasha asked.

“Nice,” Fury said. “That was a detail I hadn't noticed.”

I don't think that was what Natasha was thinking about. I think she was just scared of what would happen when those freezing hands touched Bruce's bare skin. We couldn't see anything happen, though. No freezing or anything, and Bruce didn't drop dead. He just gave a sort of a whimpering sound. Then the blue thing onscreen laughed softly.

“Bend over, Dr. Banner.” 

“Loki's voice,” Fury said. “But a Doom-bot...”

There are times for being practical... This really, really didn't feel like the right one. I can't speak for the others, but I know my mind was completely on what was happening. I'd seen people get raped of course. I mean, there was Loki. And I'd been on a few raids with the Howling Commandos. … This was somebody I knew, I think that's the difference. It was somebody I cared about, almost thought about as a friend.

“That thing of his is going to split Bruce up the middle like a ripe watermelon,” Clint said. Once again, it was exactly what I was thinking. 

Then from the video, there came a huge scream. “Loki! Noooo!” Onscreen, you could see the blue thing's back going up and down... -- No, not the back, that would have been easier to deal with. – ...It's buttocks, that's what were moving. And you couldn't see Bruce at all, the robots were doing too good of a job of holding him. All you could make out of him, was his screams, and those kept on and on, for a couple of minutes. Then before the thing moved off him, they died away to nothing.

Then the thing gave a big jerk, that was it coming, probably. It sighed, and stepped back from the body... – Back from _Bruce_ , I mean. -- It turned, then it looked right into the camera. This huge, nasty smile spread across its face again, and its red eyes glowed like coals. “This makes two of your 'Avengers', Director Fury. I will not stop until I have them all. – Tell my 'brother' his reckoning will come afterward.”


	3. The Avengers Investigate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> First, they have to watch the video again. Then, they have to find a tactful way to question Bruce. -- They _have_ to. After all, it's all their safety at-stake.

“I can't believe you could watch that, and still be thinking the whole way through, about if that's Loki.” Natasha said, her voice thin, the only noise in the room besides the muffled sound of the heli-carrier's rotors. 

After a minute, I saw Clint nod. “It's not like it was one of us,” he said. “Banner's a civilian. – You did say he was going to survive?”

“Of course he's going to survive.” Fury looked angry. He thought we were judging his reactions, I think. What was disturbing though, was that he never minimized the screen. We were talking about Bruce, and how worried we were about him, and up there the whole time, there was the last scene of the video with Loki looking at the camera, and Bruce's bleeding body in the background where we could all see it. “Don't insult me: You think I don't care when one of my men gets hurt? My job is to protect _all_ of you,” he said. “We already lost Tony. – But that was understandable. He's never been really stable. Now Bruce... – Get past your personal feelings, people. I can't protect you, unless we understand what we're up against.”

_What we're up against..._ “Listen,” Fury said. “We know Loki's powers were sealed. We dealt with him, we saw how weak he was. What's changed? And when did it change? Anyone got any ideas?”

That was when Natasha got up to get coffee. I think she just wanted a chance to look away from the screen, so she could think. “That thing with Stark was creepy,” she said, “but there wasn't any magic involved. It was just psychological torture.”

Fury nodded. “I was thinking the same thing. This is different. It's a transformation. – If it is a transformation. ...If that's really Loki up there.”

I was the one wondering what else it could have been. Even after Fury mentioning Doom-bots, the idea just wasn't in my head. I hadn't dealt with Dr. Doom before, remember.

Clint was looking down at the table. “I've heard those Doom-bots are really convincing.”

“Most of them aren't.” Fury wasn't looking at the screen either. He'd purposely taken a seat so he was facing us instead. “Doom's is, but it just has to look like a guy in armor. This is different... – Look,” he said. “Try and pretend that's not Bruce, will you? Look at it: Does it look like a robot to you?”

It looked like a monster. ...For whatever that was worth. Hell, the monsters in King Kong looked real to me, and by today's standards, those things are terrible.

I guess the others were thinking the same thing, though. Or at least Clint was. He was the only one of us there that had really dealt with Loki. – _Then_. – You could tell from his face, some memories were coming back. “If he's got his powers back,” he said, “we're fucked.”

“We'll stop him,” Fury said back right away. “You're not the only game in town, you know. We'll get the X-Men on it. – Reed Richards has had experience with Doom...”

“No,” Clint said. “Not the whole world's fucked, Director. I said if he's got 'em back, _we're_ fucked. Because we don't fuckin' know what power he has. We don't know how much of it he has.”

“He's got a grudge against us,” Natasha said. “You heard what he said. First he got Tony, now he's gotten Bruce.” She looked around the table, and her face was pale. She wanted to say _who's next,_ you could tell, but what kind of SHIELD agent would she be, to get panicked so easily?

“That's why we're here.” I got up and got a donut, then. I didn't want it, in fact the smell of it made me feel sick, the whole time it was in front of me, but it gave me something to do with my hands. I sat back down, and I started picking at it. By the time we got out at the hospital, it was nothing but a pile of crumbs, and my fingers were all sticky. “This is protective custody,” I said. “Isn't that right, Director?”

Fury nodded. What he said though, was, “Not quite. You're still The Avengers; you still have to do your job. But yeah, from now until we have this thing solved, no one goes anywhere without my okay.” He picked up the remote. “Now, I'm going to roll this thing again. Anyone need to go anywhere first?” –

“Anywhere”: Like did anyone need to throw up. I didn't, but I would have taken a Dramamine just in case, if one had been available. Clint and Natasha stayed where they were too. We all wanted to see what we were facing. Was it a crazed killer, or was it a crazed killer with magical powers?

The video rolled. It was ...Well, I guess it wasn't _quite_ as disturbing the second time through. A couple of times, Fury paused it. “There,” he'd say pointing, “does that movement look real to you?” Or, “That looks more like metal than skin, wouldn't you say?”

I couldn't have said either way. – Like I said, I'm not a good judge of special effects. – I heard Clint say something about CGI. – That's computer special effects, I think. – Then Fury said that was interesting. Could you do CGI to make someone who was really doing something look different?

The Avengers had two tech-experts, and now both of them were MIA. None of us had any other suggestions. We just looked at each other.

“I'll get the computer guys on that one,” Fury said after a minute or so. “Nice suggestion, Clint. – Of course Bruce'll give us some details that'll help.” He meant he'd tell us whether it had been a small man who'd raped him, or a big, blue monster.

We were almost there, by then. The whole time we were watching the video, the heli-carrier was in the air, headed down to Virginia, to SHIELD Hospital. We got there about halfway through our second viewing of the video. – Fury'd just said something about a “green screen”, I remember. – Then the sound of the rockets on the 'carrier started getting louder and louder. There was a bump, that was us setting down on the heli-pad next to the hospital. Next thing you know, Fury was taking us up the elevator and down the hall to the Max Security ward. I'd forgotten my ID. -- I should just put the damn thing in my wallet and be done with it, but I go _months_ in between needing it, sometimes. – It was okay though, since Director Fury was with me.

Bruce was awake. He looked over as we came in, and his eyes got really haunted-looking. He knew he was going to have to tell us about what happened, is what it was, you know? He gave us that strained smile of his, you know, the one he had the first time we all met him, when he mentioned the “Other Guy”.

“Hi guys,” he said. “You came all this way to see me?”

It was a joke. He knew we hadn't. – I mean we would have, probably. ...Some of us would have, anyway. – We came because Loki was after all of us, though. We came because we had to know what we were up against. 

Natasha was the only one smart enough to bring flowers. She had this big bunch, yellow, pink and orange. They were nothing special, but you know, a guy likes to be remembered. “How are you doing?” she said.

“I've been better.” Bruce frowned. “I've been worse too. I guess I can't complain much.”

You could see Fury wanted to start in on him right away. -- It came of us having been watching the video right before we got there. It was still fresh in all our minds, not just his. – He waited though, took a seat on one of the hard hospital chairs, shot the breeze for a while. “Warm weather we've been having. How about those Dodgers?” Stuff like that, you know. 

Bruce was grey-pale against the hospital sheets. He had all kinds of machines hooked up to him. There was this faint, beep-beep-beep that was his heartbeat, and he had this bag of some kind of liquid, with a tube running into his arm. The bruises we'd seen in the video were still there, but they'd faded some. It had been a few days since it had happened, he told us later. He still looked pretty bad, though.

Finally, when Fury thought there'd been enough small talk, he started. “So, what happened?” he said. 

Bruce looked at him. And his face got even greyer. “You had to ask, didn't you?” he said.


	4. Bruce Tells his Story

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Other Guy is apparently past history, now. He wasn't there to protect Bruce; Bruce could have died, if Loki and Doom had wanted him to.

The room was bright, with that industrial-light hospitals use. Flourescent tubes, they use, I think. All the while, while he was talking, we could hear the little beep-beep-beep of his heart machine in the background. Sometimes a nurse would run by outside the room, or they'd make an announcement over the loudspeakers. We all tried to stay quiet and just listen to him. He wasn't dumb, and he was an Avenger just like the rest of us. He knew what we needed to know.

“Doom said he could reverse the effects of the gamma radiation,” he said. “That's why I went. He did it too. Other Guy's gone. He hasn't been back since I drank Doom's formula. And he'd have been back...” He looked at us. “Remember me telling you how he stopped the bullet that time? Loki could have killed me, this time. I'd have just died.” He gave a short laugh. “Funny. I didn't think anything would be worse than having to live with the Hulk.”

“We're not judging your choices,” Natasha said. “Nobody is, Bruce.”

I think he was judging his own decisions, though. He looked at Fury. “Who would you get if I left, Director?” he said. “You're talking to Ant Man about replacing Tony, right? Who else do you have on your list?”

Fury looked kind of guilty. I guess he did have some replacements lined up. -- Well, can you blame him? The Avengers are Earth's last line of protection. What's he supposed to do, leave the Earth unprotected just because he loses some of us? -- “Don't do a Tony on us,” is what he said, though. “We're all on your side here, Bruce.”

Bruce nodded. “Right,” he said. He didn't sound convinced. “You're going to love this next part, Director: I promised Doom some stuff. That's why he helped me.”

Well, that wiped the sympathetic look right off Fury's face. “ _Some stuff_...” He made a face, like the words tasted bad. “Why would you do that, Banner?”

Why? I understood why. “You've never lived with super powers,” I told Fury. “You don't know what it's like. You just know we show up to save the world whenever it needs it...” –

“Shut up!” Fury glared at me. “Don't put words in my mouth. I'm sure living with the Hulk isn't easy. – Hell, I know it's not easy. General Ross still hasn't given up trying to get him. He's just waiting until Hulk steps out of line and SHIELD withdraws their protection.” He looked over at Bruce. “They won't,” he said. He put his hand on his arm. I'm sure it was intended as a comforting gesture, but it was really awkward and uncomfortable, watching him do it. “SHIELD's on your side, no matter what Hulk does.”

“Yeah, if there still was a Hulk.” Bruce reached for the glass on the bedside table. Natasha leaned forward and handed it to him. He drank, then sighed again. “It wasn't Hulk,” he said. “I'm used to Hulk, kind of, anyway. I'm kind of used to him. – It was knowing he's immortal that did it. You can get used to anything if there's an ending point you can see, but with Hulk...” His voice thinned. There was pain in it, so much pain that I felt bad, sitting there listening to it. He coughed and drank some more water. When he talked again, his voice sounded normal again. “You don't have to worry, Director. I didn't promise Doom anything that will hurt your precious SHIELD. I said I'd give him the research I've done since ...Since _you know_. He can't do much with that, not without the research from when I was still in Los Alamos.”

Fury snorted. “Which he probably already has.” He muttered it really low, then gave Bruce a nasty look. Natasha handed him a glass of water too, and he drank. “So, somewhere down the line we're probably going to have to deal with Hulklike monsters under Doom's control,” he said.

“That's a joke,” Bruce said. “You seriously think anyone controlled Hulk? Because I never did. – Anyway, he's not going to have the balls to come try and get it from me, not after what he let Loki do.”

“You don't know Doom,” Fury muttered. Then he coughed, like that would hide that he'd said it. “So it was Loki that did it?” he asked Bruce.

Bruce looked at him. “Who the hell else would it be?”

“We thought ...a robot,” Natasha put in.

Bruce laughed like it was the biggest joke he'd ever heard. He laughed until he got himself coughing again, and had to stop and drink more water. “A _robot_... – Seriously, a _robot_? -- You thought Loki would delegate something like _that_? No offense guys, but that's fuckin' nuts. Loki _loved_ every minute of what he did to me. Like it was the most fun he'd had in his entire life. Doom had to tell him to go easy on me a couple of times. I think he would have killed me, otherwise...” He stopped and looked at us. “I guess that raises the question of why he'd want me alive, doesn't it?”

Did it? I don't think any of us had thought about that. Maybe Fury had, though. “You're a smart man, Doctor” he said. “Why do you think he did?”

Bruce nodded. “I've thought about it.” He held out his glass for Natasha to pour him more water. “It's a scare tactic, of course. – I heard what he did to Tony. He and I were the low-hanging fruit. He got us because we wanted something. I wanted to get rid of my ...ah, my _personality problem_. Tony was just lonely after his girlfriend left. The rest of you are going to be hard, though. You don't want anything, and by now you're going to be expecting it. But if you're scared, you aren't thinking clearly. He wants to scare you, so you won't make good decisions. That's why he let me come back to tell you what happened.”

I wanted to say we'd be fine. We'd seen combat. We knew what it was to live with the fear of death all the time. But maybe Bruce had a point? Hadn't I heard about commanders making worse decisions while a battle was raging? Hell, I'd seen plenty of casualties in battlefield hospitals, from them doing it.

I looked at Natasha. She looked back at me. Then we both looked at Clint. We were the men under Fury right now, we thought. Bruce was out of the fighting. He'd caught a Blighty one, as my Brit friends used to say when someone's injury was bad enough to get them sent home. Now it was just us. How far did we all trust Fury? Enough to put our lives in his hands and let him make the decisions?

I saw Natasha look over at him. Then she licked her lips. Then, “I'm _glad_ he's so cold,” she said. “Someone's got to keep their head.” She meant she was starting to lose hers.

“I'm not,” Clint said. “Fury's too single-minded. He won't care how many of us get hurt... – Or killed. – All he cares about is if he gets Loki.”

I wanted to say that was all he should care about. The objective was to stop the enemy, right? Whatever the cost to your own men? Only what if the enemy's objective is to destroy all your men... What then?

“It's not all he's thinking about,” I told the others. “You know Fury cares what happens to us.” I was talking to convince myself as much as them, when I said it.


	5. Another Avenger Is Taken

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One day Clint and Steve wake up, and they're the only ones in the Tower.

Fury told us not to stay at Avengers Tower until this thing blew over, and we all saw the sense of that. None of us wanted to tangle with Loki, not while he had all Doom's power to draw on. Where the problem came though, was because we couldn't really see how it _would_ blow over. Loki was still free. He was unkillable, or as good as. And Latveria was a sovereign country. There was no way to send law enforcement in after either of them, not as long as they stayed there (or at Doom's horrible Embassy in New York, where they'd been when they got Tony).

Then one day... – We should have expected it. – One day one of us was gone. I say “we”. What I mean, is Clint and me. One day we woke up and Natasha was gone, and we were the only ones left in the tower. 

Clint went straight for the phone, and he called Fury. “You sent her?”

“She _volunteered._ ” – Speaker phones. They're a blessing and a curse of this time. I could hear every word of their conversation, and I was divided between thinking it was important, because it was SHIELD business, and just wanting to give Clint his privacy. –

Clint snorted. “Volunteered,” he said. “You should have sent me, Director.”

“You're joking, right?” Fury said. “Agent Romanov speaks fluent Latverian. -- I know what she is to you, Agent Barton...”

Clint snorted again. “Don't even talk about that.”

“If anyone has a chance of getting in there, she does,” Fury said. “I suppose you think the Captain could just blend right in, in an Eastern European country? Or me?”

I thought about Natasha, about our feisty, tough-minded redhead, who could always be counted on to step up and complete an assignment. She was tough all right, but I still didn't like thinking of her inside Dr. Doom's stronghold. I thought about the video with Loki and Bruce in it. I imagined that big blue monster-thing violating Natasha.

But that was the first day. Days went by after that, and we heard nothing. Then weeks went by. There was still no sign of her. It was going on a couple months, I think... It was early summer when Wolverine brought Bruce back from Latveria, and I think I flipped the calendar page to September, a couple days before we finally heard from Natasha. 

Clint got a call from Director Fury. He said he was coming over; he had something to show us. First thing he did when he came, was to open up his laptop computer and slide a disc into the CD drive.

I thought about the last time he'd done that, and an unpleasant feeling went through me. “Another video?” I said.

“This one's different.” Fury pushed the keys to activate the holographic function, and another big screen appeared in the air. The computer gave a click and a whirring noise, then the video started right in with action again, just like the other one.

What we saw this time, was Natasha. She was dressed in some kind of skimpy lacy thing, – Lingerie is what they called that stuff in my day. I don't know name they use now. – and she was sitting on a bed. She looked perfectly all right. There were no bruises you could see, and she even seemed to be smiling a little. I heard Clint give a little gasp.

“That's Latveria,” Fury said. “I think she's in Doom's castle. Look:” – He pointed up at the screen, at a torch, high up on the stone wall behind her. – “Old-school kind of guy, isn't he?”

“Shh,” Clint said. “I want to hear this.”

Onscreen, there was the smarmy voice I'd learned to associate with Dr. Doom. “Introduce yourself please,” it said.

Natasha tossed her head so her red hair flew. “Of course.” She looked into the camera with a smile. “My name is Natasha Romanova,” she said. “I am a guest of Dr. Doom, Supreme Ruler of Latveria, and his ally, Loki of Asgard.”

Then we heard Loki's voice: “Tell our viewers how you've been treated here.” 

Natasha's smile never slipped. “I have been treated as an honored guest,” she said. “Dr. Doom has been a perfect gentleman, and Loki...” She looked up and over off-camera, to where Loki was standing, it looked like. Then she laughed a little. “Loki has given me hours of delight.”

It was disorienting as hell, to watch her up onscreen, to hear her say that, and with that kind of behavior to go with it. I knew this had to be some kind of a trick, but the illusion was seamless. As far as you could see from what was onscreen, this literally _was_ Natasha, and she literally _was_ doing and saying everything we saw.

“Pause the video,” Clint said.

Onscreen, Loki had come over and sat down on the bed next to... Next to whoever she was, or _what_ ever _it_ was, that was pretending to be Natasha. He was staring straight at the camera with a cool smile on his face, and he had one hand slipped down the front of “Natasha's” lingerie. As the camera kept rolling, a strap slipped off her shoulder, and we could see Loki's fingers on her – Or _it's_ – nipple.

“No can do,” Fury said. “Same reason as last time, Agent Barton. We need to know what we're up against, remember?”

“It's a robot,” I said. “End of story.” –

Onscreen, Loki and “Natasha” were kissing passionately. We could see the back of his head, up close to her's, her pale, bare shoulder, behind one of his, wearing some kind of dark shirt. –

“A _robot_.” Fury sounded thoughtful. “That's certainly the most logical explanation. – I had thought mind-control at first...” –

Onscreen, we could see “Natasha's” hands, sliding the shirt up Loki's back and over his shoulders. –

“Mind-control doesn't work that way,” Clint said. “Loki can't make you do things that you don't...” 

“That you don't want to do. I know,” Fury interrupted him. “You told us that before, I remember. But if it's not mind-control, what is it? I know this is Doom we're dealing with, and he's a genius and all that. I'm still not buying that he's made a robot that looks like...” – He pointed at the screen. “Natasha” was naked. Her knees were up, her ...Well, her _hair down there_ was pointed right at the camera. It was curly, and browner than you'd think it would be, with her being a redhead. – “...That looks like _that_ ,” Fury said.

Clint had kind of a sick look on his face. “That's not her,” he said. 

Fury looked over at him. “Are you saying that because you know it?”

Clint shook his head. “I'm saying it because it can't be her,” he said. “They got all the details right. The skin, the coloring... She's not a natural redhead. They got that right too.” – ” He gestured up at the screen. “Can we turn that off now? Please? I'm sorry, but I don't like watching Loki fuck my girlfriend. – They'd know the details though, wouldn't they?” he said. “Because they probably raped her and tortured her before Doom made the... Before they did whatever it was that they did to make this.”

It was an actress, I thought. “Body doubles”, they call them in Hollywood, that look so much like a star that they can go in and do her part for her. This was a body double. Or Fury was wrong, Doom really could make a robot that looked just like a human. Or... But there's where I got stuck. Or what, you see? Or Loki had hold of a way better kind of mind-control than he'd had during the invasion? Something magic, like his sceptre, only better? Or he had some other kind of magic? Loki-with-magic made every other possibility we were considering look like a walk in the park. Loki-with-magic was a terrifying idea. It was enough to stop me in my tracks.

Later on, I thought about what Bruce had said in the hospital, about how much of what Loki was doing was designed to scare us so we couldn't make good decisions any more. But I wasn't thinking about that then, I can tell you.


End file.
